Today, there are more opportunities for small business funding than have probably ever existed.

It is an exciting time to be starting a business and looking for investors.

From TV’s Shark Tank to equity crowdfunding to traditional fundraising there are different environments for your pitch. But regardless of whom you are pitching or where you are pitching, here are four key tips for a successful crowdfunding pitch.

Timing is Key

For the potential investors, their time is money. Be respectful and be as succinct as possible.

Ideally, keep your entire pitch to 10 minutes.

Keep it short and powerful!

Pack the time you do have with all of the passion, expertise, and enthusiasm that got you into this business in the first place. That being said, be laser focused. Know exactly what your product or service is and why it is the most important moneymaker to come along since sliced bread.

Get to the bottom line quickly.

Investors want to know how much you need, what you need it for, and when they are going to get their money’s worth. For more specifics on questions investors may ask, check out our series: Questions Investors Ask. Remember, don’t worry about answering all of their potential questions in your initial pitch. Focus on engaging them, then they will ask more questions, and you will have the opportunity to go into more details.

Pitch Your Story

Yes, it is true that investors care about the money and their potential return on investment. However, more often than not, they are investing their money in you. It is your passion, your knowledge, your excitement that they are going to connect with. Over and over, when polled, investors repeatedly list the founders as one of the number one reasons they chose to invest.

They want to connect with you. So tell them your story!

This is when you get to let all of the bone-deep drive that has gotten you this far shine through.

Practice! Practice! Practice!

You know your product or service inside and out but distilling it down to the most compelling message and delivery possible is going to take some practice. You want to practice until you feel comfortable with all of the material.

Again, if the investors like what they hear in your presentation, they will ask you more questions. So use the list of items in our blog series “Questions Investors Ask” and practice answering them until you feel confident.

Bring Your Team

Unless you’re at the very early stages of your business, you most likely have a rocking team that helps you make the magic happen. Consider bringing some of your key players along to help with the presentation.

Investors know that it takes a team to make a growing business happen and they like to see and meet the team whenever possible.

Remember that while the pitch is an intense moment in time, raising capital is all about the relationship. Both you and the potential investors are looking at what will hopefully be a multi-year business partnership. Don’t get so caught up in the pitch itself that you forget to research and “get to know” the investors before you pitch. And after the pitch, the relationship development will need to continue.

A truly successful pitch deck is about more than just engaging the investors’ minds, it is about connecting to their hearts.

Preparing to pitch investors can be intimidating but understanding the questions most likely to be asked can help you overcome your nerves. This is the third article in our series about questions investors commonly ask. Today we will cover traction and early adoption, any downsides or risks, and your exit strategy. These questions don’t represent an exhaustive list but can give you an idea of where you might need to spend some more time preparing.

Does Your Company Have Traction?

Traction can take many forms that can vary based on your business type. Having early traction of some kind can put you in a more favorable position with investors.

How many users or customers do you have?

What is your average churn rate?

What do you attribute the early traction to?

Do you have plans for accelerating or building on your current traction?

How many downloads, subscriptions, likes, shares, or sign-ups do you have?

Do you have any celebrity endorsements?

What is your social impact?

What is your engagement on social media?

What are the Downsides, Risks, or Threats?

Starting or growing a business of any kind is inherently risky, and there are always threats of some kind to consider. Investors are usually asking the following questions to test your tolerance for risk and your sense of where your business and the marketplace really is.

In Your Opinion, what are the principal risks in this business?

Do you have any legal risks?

Are there product liability risks?

Are there regulatory risks in your industry or specifically with your product or service?

Is there the capacity to distribute risk across your team?

Is there an Exit Strategy?

Investors are looking to make some money as well as being part of something they believe in. Therefore, they will want to get a feel for how and when they will be able to exit and earn the return on their investment.

Do you anticipate going public with an IPO or going the merger and acquisitions (M&A) route?

If you got the M&A route, who will be the likely acquirers?

Considering the given market comparables, how will valuation of an exit be determined?

Do you have any similar examples?

Financially, where do you see your company in five years? Where do you see yourself in five years?

When do you see this exit transition happening?

Some of these questions may really make you stop and pause. That can be a good thing. It’s important to think through some of these tougher questions you may not have considered before and know where you stand. For more preparation questions you can check out part 1 and part 2 of our series of articles. Next week we will be looking at the final three areas of questions: financing round, financials, and intellectual property.

“Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have.” –Ed Bradley

Searching out, pitching to, and bringing on investors can be a lengthy and involved process. You can make it smoother by being as prepared as possible. This article is the second in our series covering questions you can expect to hear from investors. We will include queries about your products or services, the competition, and customer acquisition. It is not a complete list, but we hope that it helps you prepare and have the smoothest process possible.

Your Products and Services
Your product or service is the core of what you are trying to get funding for, so now is your time to answer questions about what you created and are passionate about! Investors are looking to back something with a unique selling proposition (USP) that solves a particular customer problem.

Why should people care about your product or service?

What is different about your product or service?

Are you first to market?

Won’t a large corporation just build something like this?

If you are first to market, why hasn’t it been done before?

Were there earlier versions? If so, what did you learn from them?

Do you have patents secured or pending?

How do you plan on improving or adding on to your product or service in the future?

The Competition
You will always have competition, even if you are first to market. If you cannot identify your direct and indirect competitors, you are likely to have credibility problems with potential investors. A good rule of thumb is to be knowledgeable about your top 5 direct and indirect competitors.

Who is your company’s competition?

Are there barriers to market entry?

What competitive advantage do you have over your competition?

Does your competition have advantages over you?

Compared with other businesses in your market, how do you compete on price, features, and performance?

Marketing and Customer Acquisition
You may have the most amazing, unique, and desirable product or service, but if you have no way to market and acquire new customers, you are dead in the water. So investors are going to be very interested in how much research you have done on your target market and your strategies for making money through sales. If you haven’t released to the market yet, you will need to research similar companies and project based on the data.

How much does it cost to acquire new customers?

What is the lifetime value of a customer?

Have you done focus groups? What did you learn from them?

What are your social media and PR strategies?

What is your marketing plan?

Describe the typical sales cycle from initial customer contact through closing the sale?

What is the client’s cycle? Are there opportunities for up-sales or repeat business?

The more you know which questions you will need to answer, the more prepared you can be for a successful round of fundraising. In our first article “Top Questions Investors Ask Part 1” we covered questions about the big picture of your company, the founder(s) and team, as well as your market. In our next installment, we will look at your company’s traction, the risks and threats, and your exit strategy.

Whether you are putting together your pitch deck or prepping for an interview with an investor, the more prepared you are, the better. Especially if this is your first time through the process of investors and fundraising, it is easy to get overwhelmed and even a bit intimidated by the questions. So here are some top questions you need to be prepared to answer. Remember questions are good, it usually means you have piqued the investor’s interest. You can practice responding to these questions with your team until you feel comfortable.

Today, in part one of our series on investor’s questions, we’re going to cover general questions, founders, and available market. While this list is not exhaustive, we hope it gives you a place to start preparing.

General Questions
If you are using a fundraising platform like Crowdfunder, then these questions should be part of your pitch deck so when you get to talk to an interested investor, they may or may not revisit them. Investors want to know what your company does and why they should be interested. These are essentially your icebreaker or big-picture questions.

What does your company do and what makes it unique?

What big problem does your company solve for your customers?

How big is the market for your product or service?

How big can the company get?

What is your end game?

Company’s Founder & Key Team Members
For many investors, particularly in the seed or round one level, they are looking for the dynamic, dedicated leader with vision and a solid, experienced team. The types of investors you want to work with are the ones who are investing in a vision, a dream, a team, and not just in it for the money.

Who are the founders or founder and the key team members?

What motivates and drives the founder or founders?

What experience does the team have?

Do you plan to scale the team over the next 12 months?

Why is this the team to take this company to the next level?

Are there gaps in the key team that need to be filled?

Available Market
Investors are looking for enough growth potential to make it worth their investment. You will need to demonstrate that the market for your product or service is large and growing. Do your research! Be familiar with historical as well as upcoming trends in your market. Be prepared to be able to cite sources for your claims.

What percentage of the market do you currently hold (if any)?

What percentage of the market do you intend to take and what is your timeline for doing so?

What is the actual size of the addressable market?

Why does your company have the potential to increase market penetration?

In this article, “Top Questions Investors Ask” we’ve covered what kind of general company questions are common. We also touched on what you need to be prepared to answer about your team and the market. In our next article, “Top Questions Investors Ask Part 3” we will cover questions about your products and services, your competition, and customer acquisition.

Do you have a great business idea you want to get off the ground? Is your company ready to jump to the next stage of growth? Do you want to launch a new product or service line? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, congratulations!

These are all stages when it’s common for business owners to realize they will need an influx of cash to make their dream possible. Equity crowdfunding is one of the fastest growing methods for raising capital but is it a good fit for your company or business idea? Answer the questions below and see for yourself.

Do you have a plan?
The importance of having a solid business model or plan cannot be overstated. There are different types of business plans and methods for developing them. Regardless of which direction you go, the plan should include the items below:

Company description

Market analysis

Organization and management

Service or product line

Marketing and sales

Target market(s)

Funding request

Financial projections

Are you prepared to not own 100% of your company?
Equity crowdfunding is not like “traditional” crowdfunding where investors are donating an amount of money for a prize or a discounted rate for the product. With equity crowdfunding, investors get to own a percentage of your company in exchange for the money they are putting into your business. As the business owner, you can determine the amount of equity you are willing to give away to investors. For example, you can choose to allow investors to own 15% of your company and you retain 85% ownership. Understand though that there is a direct correlation between the amount of money invested and the percentage of ownership. Usually, the more money you are asking for, the more of your company you will have to let go to shareholders.

Are you ready for the accountability?
As we mentioned before, you will have shareholders. These are the investors who have given you their money and now own a percentage of your company. This means you could have a group of people you need to communicate with on various topics including how the company is performing. If you want complete autonomy and the idea of being answerable to a group of shareholders is not appealing to you, then equity crowdfunding may not be a good fit for you.

Are you ready to participate?
Companies like Crowdfunder provide a platform for you to connect with investors, but this is not a “build it and they will come” scenario. To have a successful, public, equity crowdfunding campaign, you must be willing to be an active participant in the process of building and maintaining momentum. A plan for marketing your campaign and getting it in front of investors is a must. An effective campaign includes but is not limited to the following:

Create a dynamic company profile on the platform

Fill out the investment profile

Tell your story! Investors often want more than just numbers to invest in they want to invest in you. Connect with them by sharing your story

Leverage social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., to raise awareness of your public fundraising campaign

Actively follow up with interested investors

Equity crowdfunding is not a good fit for every company, but if you answered yes to the questions above then come check out or platform! We’re excited to get hear your story and work with you to get your dream funded.

Katie Talati is the Head of Investor Relations at Crowdfunder, Inc. where she focuses on developing relationships with investors in all aspects of the Crowdfunder business. This includes investors on our platform, limited partners in our venture fund and our investors for Crowdfunder Inc.. During her time at Crowdfunder, she has reviewed hundreds of startup pitches and developed a deep understanding of the crowdfunding industry and its surrounding regulations. She is also the senior analyst for our VC Index Fund and is an associated person with CFI Securities (broker-dealer) as a registered representative.

Katie Talati began working at Crowdfunder nearly three years ago at the company’s early stage. She likes the fast-paced nature of the startup space, where she gets to work on different tasks every day. Katie believes:

“Beyond traditional benefits, startups offer the chance to learn far more than working at a large corporation. You’re not given the same thing to work on every day. They also allow employees to have a great work-life balance.”

When Katie started at Crowdfunder, she found herself working on various projects in a few different areas. Management recognized her exceptional leadership skills and within a few months, she was promoted to project manager. When the team introduced Crowdfunder’s portfolio platform, Katie assumed her current role as Investor Relations Manager.

According to Katie, working in Investor Relations at Crowdfunder is different than working the same position at banks and private equity firms. At more traditional financial services firms, Investor Relations is limited to managing relations with a list of investors. At Crowdfunder, Investor Relations focuses on the product side. A big part of her role involves speaking with investors on the platform about their user experience. This involves patience and communication.

Katie did not originally have a finance background, but she learned quickly.

“I studied Communications and Global Studies at UCLA. Although I didn’t start out in Finance, I was able to use my strengths as a communicator to manage company Investor Relations. I’ve taught myself fundraising and finance terminology, and at the end of the day, my investors are my clients. I go above and beyond for them. I believe you should be personable and dedicated in whatever position you hold. I try my best to connect with investors and find out what each client likes to invest in. Learning why an investor is excited about a specific company helps me create individual relationships. People remember you if you help them.”

Being a female leader at a financial company is rare. Katie remarked that although she is highly qualified, she has experienced others doubting her capabilities due to her gender and age.

“I have had people ask me questions trying to gauge my age. I have also had people turn to my male coworkers instead of me in meetings. That can be frustrating, but I choose to continue to work hard and hope that people will see past those things. On the other hand, I have had many positive experiences with investors who don’t share those biases.”

As a financial tech company with a female-majority team, Crowdfunder breaks the mold in terms of gender equality in the workplace. When our current president Steven McClurg joined the team, he instituted equal and transparent pay. According to Katie:

“Steven refreshed how things are done. He values communication and gave me a lot more responsibility. As a woman early on in my career, that has been invaluable for me. I now manage our VC Index Fund, which includes performing diligence on prospective investments, running financial models and reporting. The work is high level, but it’s been rewarding. I now have important skills that will help me at any future position.”

Due to her success in her current role, Katie was given the opportunity to become a licensed representative of the broker-dealer. This license makes her an invaluable asset to our company’s growth. When asked about the future of her career, Katie said:

“At Crowdfunder, I’m able to see the results of the work I put in with entrepreneurs and investors. Our original mission statements centered upon making a positive economic impact on the U.S.. I believe Crowdfunder has made that impact and will continue to make that impact in the years to come. When our company started, we were only a few years over the market crash, and the job economy was unstable. Several years have passed and conditions have improved, but there’s still more that can be done. I really enjoy the hands-on aspect of working at Crowdfunder and feel like we are working to make a difference.”

We are lucky to have such a strong leader on our team. As Crowdfunder grows, we can’t wait to see what new challenges Katie will take on.

Crowdfunder, Inc. and its affiliates disclaim responsibility for any statement by any of its employees. The views expressed herein are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the company. This post may not be reprinted or disseminated without our written permission.

Modbook is a company currently accepting reservations on the Crowdfunder platform.

They make the macOS tablet that Apple won’t — a full-featured, all-in-one pen tablet convertible for power and performance dependent Mac users. Led and advised by former Apple managers, Modbook has successfully established a strong brand with a proven record of manufacturing and shipping Mac-based solutions, and has built an active business platform powered by a reliable, flexible and scalable e-commerce system serving customers in 70 countries to date.

The Crowdfunder team sat down with Andreas Haas the CEO to discuss Modbook’s business strategy and growth.

Crowdfunder:

Steve Wozniak is a titan of personal computing and an impressive part of your diverse advisory team. How did you get him and the others to join your venture?

Andreas Haas:

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet and work with some of the most capable and talented people from all over the world during (and after) my tenure at Apple, and a lot of them are still part of the team supporting my vision to create macOS-based tablet computers.<

Steve, however, I met through the unlikeliest of friends, an accomplished Mixed Martial Artist who started talking to Steve about my project during a video shoot they were doing for a commercial. Steve was instantly intrigued. My friend put us in touch, and I got to work with one of my technology idols.

When I coach freshmen startup entrepreneurs, I always encourage them to leverage all their friends and family first. They will give you the most honest feedback on your ideas and if you are really onto something, they will be your greatest ambassadors.

Crowdfunder:

Your unconventional approach to reimagining Apple Macs impressed Steve Wozniak, a well-known technology enthusiast. Which aspects of the Modbook story compels investors to join and what are the top reasons for them to pass?

Andreas Haas:

The decision to either invest or pass really turns on two sides of the same coin – understanding our unique niche, where we are the only company on the planet that makes macOS-based pen tablet computers, and that it is safe from Apple.

The Mac segment of the growing pen hardware solutions market, primarily targeting the creative industries, exceeded $1.8bn in 2016 with about 1.5m users. They typically spend $4k or more to cobble together Apple high-end notebooks with other 3rd-party pen hardware like Wacom pen-enabled displays or windows tablets. However these workarounds are cumbersome, inefficient, and ultimately lacking when compared to the smooth and powerful all-in-one solutions we’re providing.

Apple’s current extremely successful business model is built on an effective and deeply ingrained platform strategy of distinctively splitting their mobile offerings into macOS-based notebooks vs. iOS-based iPhone/iPad tablets. It is this strategy that creates the need for our products in the first place.

Ultimately, our niche is safe because Apple would have to throw out their winning business strategy to address the needs of our $1.8bn revenue / 1.5m user market. Just in the last year, Apple generated an estimated $275bn in revenues from over 210m happy customers, whereas our niche barely represents ⅔ of 1% of their business.

As such, it is highly unlikely that Apple will pursue this, or as Apple CEO Tim Cook says: “Apple feels strongly that customers are not looking for a converged Mac and iPad”.

Crowdfunder:

There are myriads of PC vendors, but only two companies offering Macs, you and Apple. Given how fiercely protective Apple is of its intellectual property, how is this done?

Andreas Haas:

Like Shelby for Ford and AMG for Mercedes in the car industry, Modbook fills a high-end niche by transforming genuine Apple laptops into MacOS-based tablet computers. The MacBook Pro base systems come from Apple, we make the conversion kits and perform the transformations, and the customers receive their shrink wrapped Modbook tablet solutions, custom built to their individual specifications.

Due to this unique approach, when I launched the 1st. Generation Modbook back in 2008, Apple initially embraced us by signing us as an Apple Proprietary Solution Provider and later transitioned us into becoming an Apple Premier Developer. We are also proud to count Apple among our longest customers purchasing our Modbook solutions.

Being a respectful Mac citizen and keeping our solutions 100% Mac Developer guidelines compliant not only earned us our accepted place in the Apple ecosystem, it also ensures that our Modbook tablet computers support all macOS applications out of the box – if the app runs on the MacBook Pro it will run on the Modbook.

Crowdfunder:

Most hardware companies manufacture their products in Asia, but you are building your products right here in the US. How do you make that work?

Andreas Haas:

Actually, building in the US is a critical part of our business model and it took years to perfect our own special brand of Just-In-Time manufacturing.

It relies equally on the unique hardware abstraction layer design we developed for our Modbook product line, as well as on our location in Southern California where we are able to tap into the same wealth of advanced aerospace engineering and production capabilities that other inspiring ventures like SpaceX are building their successes on. Here we have created a networked supply chain that is both highly capable, scalable, and most importantly quickly adjustable.

The combination of advanced design, plugged into local US-based production, allows us to efficiently and expediently include new features and updates Apple regularly phases into its MacBook products. This enables us to take full advantage of the technology lead Apple is bringing to our products like the revolutionary Touch Bar we’ll be incorporating into the upcoming Modbook Pro X.

Turning potential obstacles into advantages not only improves your chances for success, but it also creates barriers for potential competitors.

Crowdfunder:

You still consider yourself a startup company with its major breakout product launch, the Modbook Pro X, coming up this year. However, at the end of 2012 you launched the Modbook Pro which is still available from your website. Can you tell us that story?

Andreas Haas:

Building a successful hardware business requires a lot more than completing the product development.

Many startups struggle to get their ideas manifested in the first production batch, only to then fail at one of the challenges arising from building a solid infrastructure to run the actual business around their product.

We used the Modbook Pro, put together from development milestones of the Pro X project, to build, thoroughly test and optimize as many of the business processes we expect to need.

For example, we created our own online store capable of advanced custom product configuration, rolled it out to multiple countries, and ran it with country-specific pricing and currencies, and honed our ability to sell, ship, deliver and service products to customers in 70 countries.

Furthermore, producing prototypes or pre-production units will not show how the planned manufacturing technologies and processes will actually perform during live production.

For example, we initially adopted a sheet metal forming process with secondary machining for parts to achieve certain cost reductions. This process worked great for the prototypes and pre-production, but when we ramped up to production numbers the yield dropped so dramatically that we abandoned the process for the Pro X entirely.

Only real life transactions and product movements across the globe will allow you to work out the kinks in your business infrastructure, and we used the Modbook Pro to do that on a better controllable scale.

Crowdfunder:

There are many computer & tablet vendors and even more peripheral makers, vying for customer attention and combined spending billions of dollars in marketing. How can you as a startup company with limited resources rise above that fray and reach your target audience?

Andreas Haas:

In my experience, for a hardware business, the most effective strategy per marketing dollar spent is to establish a solid initial market footprint with a properly conducted product launch.

The key to the success here is the amount of media coverage you can generate. A launch presents a golden opportunity for your story to get picked up by the news media and rise above the fray at a fraction of the marketing budget needed otherwise.

In addition to having all your marketing material prepared on the front-end and your sales team ready to follow through on any leads on the back-end, you need to have created as many press evaluation units of your product as you can afford, pre-pitched and pre-matched to news outlets your target audience is likely to pay attention.

The story about your product being new, constitutes a perishable asset with a hard expiration date. Once the first news reports have been published, it will require increasingly more effort to get coverage. In fact, an underwhelming product launch is a lost opportunity nearly impossible to make up for afterwards.

Crowdfunder:

There are many computer & tablet vendors and even more peripheral makers, vying for customer attention and combined spending billions of dollars in marketing. How can you as a startup company with limited resources rise above that fray and reach your target audience?

Andreas Haas:

This latest fundraiser was to be our first conducted under Rule 506(c) of Regulation D, allowing us to broadly solicit and generally advertise our private offering to accredited investors.

The main reason for switching to general solicitation, namely its ability to reach a (much) larger number of potential investors, is also the key to our decision to host our campaign with Crowdfunder.com. Compared to all other platforms we researched, Crowdfunder.com offered the best means to overcome the challenges posed by widening the audience of our fundraising efforts.

In Crowdfunder.com we found a platform that (in no particular order):

• … has one of, if not the largest, built-in community of accredited investors while providing the tools and mechanisms to actively reach out to them.

Our Crowdfunder.com marketing package presented our venture in short order to a huge number of potential investors through newsletters and social media posts, and provided us with tools to actively identify and reach out to individual investors.

• … offers tools to measure and track the results of your fundraising efforts. Those backend tools allow you to focus your efforts on the initiatives showing the highest results.

Not only can this help improve your conversion rate, but it also helps you make better use of your most precious commodity – time.

• … provides one of, if not the most, advanced environment to both prepare and present the campaign to interested investors.

The platform’s powerful backend tools make it easy to compose a great campaign page, guiding you through the process step-by-step and making sure that all important aspects about your venture are covered. Once your campaign is live, your venture is presented to visiting prospects in a well laid out and clearly structured way, designed to quickly capture a potential investor’s interest and then provide in-depth information at his fingertips.

• … contains a well developed set of tools and mechanism to collect and follow through on all generated leads.

If your marketing is doing well, you will see a lot of contacts registering their interest with you to learn more. The built-in mechanisms and tools help move those contacts further down the sales funnel while gauging their individual interest levels. This allows you to identify and focus your efforts on those closest to a decision to invest

One of the key challenges we experienced in dealing with leads generated through this latest campaign compared to the investor contacts we developed in the past, is to keep our response times for follow through on inquiries down – there are (happily) just so many more inquiries to deal with. The last thing you want to happen is to let a potential investor lose interest, because it took too much time to get back to him with that document.

Crowdfunder.com’s tools can only get you started down the road to closing investors. Therefore, before you launch your campaign, you really should have:

• mapped out exactly how you intend to guide a potential investor to closing,

• figured out how you are going to track the progress for each individual lead,

• identified who is going to help you on your team and how exactly you are going to collaborate,

• determined what information and/or documents you intend to or are willing to share

• everything actually prepared, in place, tested and ready to go.

Once your campaign starts, time you have to spend on any of the above, will be time lost following through on potential leads, which could cause you to lose out on potential investments and likely curtailing the success of your campaign.

The views expressed herein are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the company. This post may not be reprinted or disseminated without our written permission.

I’ve learned about the process over the years by getting to know a few of the worlds most successful serial entrepreneurs, by raising millions myself from angels & VCs, by investing as an angel, and as CEO of the VC fund + equity investment platform Crowdfunder.com.

Across all this investment and fundraising activity, I’ve seen that the most successful fundraises have a several key elements in common. Below are five parts to successful fundraising for your startup — with specific examples, templates, and resources.

Snapchat Shows us that Startup Funding has not Dried up, but Change has come to the Venture Capital Market.

As the CEO of the equity crowdfunding platform + early stage venture fund, Crowdfunder.com, I have a front row seat to the rapidly changing dynamics of Venture Capital.

On May 26th, Snapchat announced it closed a Series F round of $1.8 Billion, at a $20 Billion valuation, jumping $5 Billion from its Series E raise in March of 2015 and up $10 Billion from its Series D raise in December 2014. This valuation shows strong confidence from investors. Snapchat is currently #6 on the Forbes Unicorn list behind companies like Uber and AirBNB. To many readers unfamiliar with Snapchat, it may come as a surprise that it is so highly valued. What is this ghost app you keep seeing?